It’s been eight years since the Pittsburgh Steelers’ legend Ryan Shazier roamed the middle of the field, blowing up plays and striking fear into quarterbacks, before that hit on Bengals wideout Josh Malone changed everything. The spinal injury that followed ended his football career and, for a while, cast doubt on whether he’d ever walk normally again. Let alone pick up a controller and play a game he loves in his post-retirement career.

But earlier today, the former Steelers’ linebacker was back in a competitive setting, this time teaming up with RMU Esports to host a “Madden Madness” charity event benefiting the Ryan Shazier Fund for Spinal Rehabilitation. He even jumped into games with fans.

It’s only a video game, sure. But considering how dire things once looked, watching Shazier lean forward in his chair, locked in, completely engaged, felt like a small miracle in his new initiative.

In one photo, the fan across from him is reclining, relaxed. Shazier, meanwhile, is hunched forward, dialed in as if it were third-and-long. This appearance wasn’t just a cameo for a good cause. He looked genuinely happy to be there. That’s really what his foundation is about. After receiving immediate care, months of rehab, and enduring setback after setback, he regained movement in his legs and eventually reclaimed a full life with his family.

That journey led him to create the Ryan Shazier Fund for Spinal Rehabilitation, which aims to “give those with spinal cord injuries and their caregivers the support, resources, and funding they need to live independent and meaningful lives.”

The fund primarily serves families across eastern Ohio, western Pennsylvania, and northern West Virginia.

The former Steelers linebacker has been open about how grim things got in the days after his injury. A week after the hit, he became seriously ill, and only then did he fully grasp the extent of the damage. That was the moment he resolved to fight back, inch by inch. What he was given, he now tries to give to others.

And he hasn’t forgotten the people who made that recovery possible. This week, he reunited with the doctors who treated him eight years ago.

Ryan Shazier visits doctors to express gratitude

The hit that changed everything happened on December 4, 2017. Ryan Shazier came downhill for a routine tackle against the Bengals and never got back up. The collision left him with a severe spinal cord injury, paralyzed from the waist down, and he was rushed to UC Medical Center. Given how dire things looked that night, it was hard for anyone to imagine he’d ever walk again.

But the doctors gave him that chance. Six months later, Shazier was back on his feet. Still not fully himself, as he says, but doing far more than he ever expected. He credits much of that to the neuroscience team at UC, who helped guide him through the darkest stretch of his life.

“To have this community of doctors and this staff be in the forefront in the first steps of allowing me to build back my life, I can’t thank them enough with the just the care that was provided here. So, I just wanted to come back and say thank you,” Shazier said. “The reason I’m standing here is because I didn’t give up and then I also had a team around me that didn’t give up.”

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That’s the heart of Shazier’s story. The same relentlessness that made him a two-time Pro Bowler showed up in rehab. The same attitude that defined his game is what helped define his recovery. And now, he’s doing everything he can to make sure people facing similar battles have a support system as strong as the one he had.